Table 6. What Health Organizations Can Do .

Key Themes	Sample Quotes
Develop positive, ongoing relationships	“Relationship is key. Relationship, relationship, relationship. Getting to know each other, building trust, understanding where the challenges are for our partners in interfacing and having the same understanding for our clinical and health services people … and basically having all of the things that go into building a trusting relationship.… so being open, being transparent, sharing information, mobilizing knowledge, being able to resolve, to identify potential pinch points... That’s all soft skills” (31). “[Communication is] fundamental and must be regularly done” (35). “There’s such an opportunity to involve researchers upfront and help them understand the context that you’re developing policy within and the timelines that you’re working within because they can adapt and you can kind of adapt your methodology with them so they’re, you know, helping you along the way so you can iterate your strategy development” (02).
Show strong leadership from the top of the organization	“It all comes down to leadership. ... you need strong leadership with clear accountability” (35). “[The new CEO] brings the people definite stability, … definitely encouraging us to do more of an integration work, to create partnerships” (18). “I came to develop a vision of integrated research… so [this would not have happened] if the CEO had not seen thevalue” (12). “I’ve come to be a big believer that there has to be understanding from the most senior leadership within the organization. I don’t think I could emphasize that enough, that if the leadership doesn’t buy in, I don’t think there’s a chance of success” (1).
Establish and communicate clear organizational processes	“I think we need to be explicit about what a partnership or a collaboration looks like. I think organizations need to start to consider building in research evaluation into their business plan” (25). “Lay out your expectations explicitly at the start of a partnership. … defining how you expect the researchers to engage with you… talking about what are issues you anticipate could occur and how will you mitigate those” (04). “They may not realize it, but unless they can get our buy-in, the [research projects] are not going to be approved. They may not realize that and they may be really angry about it” (18). “[Previously] the academic person would kind of come into [the region] and - this is the story I was told - kind of terrifying people into having them do what they wanted…. So [now] we say to the institutions: your researcher can come here and play in our sandbox. Here are our rules.Soit keeps everyone kind of honest” (09).
Develop infrastructure to support partnerships	“Sowe have also hired at [X], organizational researchers. These are folks we ask to do research, like any other researcher. They don’t have teaching obligations, obviously, they are paid for by the organization. We don’t expect them to apply for salary grants, but we do ask them to submit research projects to funding agencies and align their research program to the organization’s priorities and needs” (13). “Now we have certain structures in place to involve academics, for instance we have a Primary Health Research Network. And through that venue, and through a community of practice that we’re starting, it’s where we communicate to say ‘here is what the burning issues are on the operations side, and if you’d really like our support, stand behind us’” (05).

Abbreviation: CEO, chief executive officer.